Other Film and Media Studies Commons^™

0875: Mike Jones President Barack Obama Media Collection, 2008-2013, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection is predominantly newspapers from 2008-2011 and magazines from the same time period. Other items include campaign paraphernalia such as a t-shirt, campaign signs (one covered in anti-Obama graffiti), campaign buttons, bumper stickers, and an advertisement for the coverage of the 2008 election by Arizona Daily Star, and VHS recordings of the election, inauguration of President Obama, and President Obama’s first 100 days in office

The Epic Journey Of Pepe The Frog: A Study In Post-Truth, Jaq Webb

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Abstract

The internet meme Pepe the Frog is an excellent avenue for exploring the relationship between post-truth politics, new media, and viral ideas. While memes as conceptualized by Richard Dawkins are essentially timeless components of human society, internet memes as exemplified by the hijacking of Pepe the Frog by the Alt-Right and the Trump campaign are a novel force with uniquely dark implications for liberal democracy. In this study, I attempt a leftist analysis of the best thinking about Post-Truth Trump-era politics and the communication tactics of the Alt-Right, which suggests that some of the same cultural and material forces …

Climate Change And Vaccines: Distrust Of Science In Politics And The Media, Natalie Montalbano

Senior Honors Projects

Distrust in science and the scientific process has increased significantly over the last fifty years, and this distrust is particularly apparent in the fields of climate change and vaccination. Climate change, a relatively new scientific issue, has become one of the hottest topics discussed in both U.S and world politics. The existence and real threat of anthropogenic global warming was publicly declared by National Geographic in 2004, but climate scientists had acknowledged that humans were causing the warming of our Earth as early as the 1980’s. Vaccines, despite being safe and effective in curbing the spread of infectious diseases, have …

Science-Fictional North Korea: A Defective History, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Kafkaesque, Orwellian, eerie, surreal, bizarre, grotesque, alien, wacky, fascinating, dystopian, illusive, theatrical, antic, haunting, apocalyptic: these are just a few of the vaguely science-fictional adjectives that are now associated with North Korea. At the same time, North Korea has become an oddly convenient trope for a certain aesthetic – an uncanny opacity; an ominous mystique – that many writers and artists have exploited to generate striking science-fictional effects in texts with little or no connection to North Korean reality. (The 2002 Bond film Die another Day, for example, draws from North Korea’s science-fictional aura to animate North Korean super-villains who …

Live From New York, It's The Fake News! Saturday Night Live And The (Non)Politics Of Parody, Amber Day, Ethan Thompson

English and Cultural Studies Journal Articles

Though Saturday Night Live's “Weekend Update” has become one of the most iconic of fake news programs, it is remarkably unfocused on either satiric critique or parody of particular news conventions. Instead, the segment has been shaped by a series of hosts who made a name for themselves by developing distinctive comic personalities. In contrast to more politically invested contemporary programs, the genre of fake news on Saturday Night Live has been largely emptied to serve the needs of the larger show, maintaining its status as just topical, hip, and unthreatening enough to attract celebrities and politicians, as well …

Politics And Heidegger: Aristotle, Superman, And Žižek, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

This essay discusses Heidegger's thinking on the political and technology in the context of metaphysics in an age that is increasingly directed to both technology and the imaginary or the virtual. The context of Aristotelian phronesis is traced back to Aristotle's youth in Macedonia and the circumstance of war and world conquest, to the allure of a comic book character (that would be the Action Comic's figure of Superman) and the cinematic seduction of a pair of eyeglasses to conclude with a review of Latour's network actants and Žižek on Marxism (and Occupy Wall Street).

War Memories, Violence And Social Pathology In Saura’S La Caza, Jesús Urda

Conference Papers

The paper analyses the metaphorical visual and philosophical depiction of Spanish Civil war and its aftermath in Carlos Saura's La Caza.

Mr. Stewart And Mr. Colbert Go To Washington: Television Satirists Outside The Box, Amber Day, Jeffrey P. Jones, Geoffrey Baym

English and Cultural Studies Journal Articles

The political satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are largely celebrated for their nightly television programs, which use humor to offer useful political information, provide important forums for deliberation and debate, and serve as sites for alternative interpretations of political reality. Yet, when the two satirists more directly intervene in the field of politics—which they increasingly do—they are often met by a chorus of criticism that suggests they have improperly crossed normative boundaries. This article explores Stewart and Colbert’s “out of the box” political performances, which include, among others, the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity, Colbert’s testimony before Congress in …